The most Arizona things we saw at Country Thunder 2024, from Miss Arizona to 93 degree days

It says Arizona right there in the name, but Country Thunder Arizona had moments that felt a little more specific to our festival than any of those other Country Thunder destinations, from Saskatchewan in western Canada to Bristol, Tennessee.

It’s true, we had no formerly Phoenix-based names at the top of the bill this year, like we did in 2023 when Dierks Bentley brought it all home with a crowd-pleasing headlining set. But TikTok breakout Avery Anna recognized her high school teacher from the main stage. She’s from Flagstaff, as it turns out (but her teacher knew that). And Miss Arizona USA was there all weekend in her sash and crown.

Here's a look back at the most Arizona things we saw at Country Thunder Arizona 2024.

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Flagstaff TikTok sensation rocks main stage

Not many artists playing Country Thunder Arizona’s main stage can legitimately point to someone in the audience and tell the crowd “Guys, this is, like, a teacher from my high school.”

But TikTok breakout Avery Anna is from Arizona, as she told us several times in the course of her performance Thursday afternoon. She even mentioned her teacher by name before the set was through, clearly thrilled to be rocking a festival crowd that included a familiar face from high school.

Anna’s mom was also in attendance.

After “Just Cause I Love You,” the ballad that made her an overnight TikTok sensation, Anna told the crowd she recorded the song in the bathtub at her mother’s house in Flagstaff during COVID. She moved to Nashville when the song went viral.

Miss Arizona USA makes the scene in her sash and crown

When first we saw Miss Arizona USA, Candace Kanavel, during the second performance on opening day, she was in the pit with Sean McShea enjoying a crowd-pleasing cover of Taylor Swift’s “Love Song” by Halle Kearns, who introduced it by telling us “This woman raised me.”

Kanavel was wearing her Miss Arizona sash over a little knit dress while rocking her pageant crown at the time. When she took the stage a few sets later, she was wearing her work clothes. She’s a Tempe police officer — the first contestant in her line of work to compete in the Miss USA pageant.

Arizona weather was pure desert spring

A high of 93 degrees on the opening day of an outdoor festival in early April? That’s some Arizona weather for you.

And the cowboy look felt more authentic in the Arizona desert.

That sea of cowboys hats was probably no different than the scene at any country music festival, but there’s an air of authenticity to dressing like a cowboy in a state that can lay claim to having hosted the gunfight at the OK Corral and been the filming location for the John Wayne western “Stagecoach.” There’s even a western titled “Arizona,” shot in Tucson. And by “shot,” we mean “filmed,” not “gunned down in the street at high noon outside the saloon."

Flatland Cavalry’s George Strait cover was a sweet Arizona shout out

Flatland Cavalry covered a classic that’s a strong contender for the greatest Arizona reference in a country song, “Ocean Front Property” by the great George Strait.

The song opens with a string of bald-faced lies about how little the narrator will care if you leave him.

“If you leave me, I won't miss you,” he sings. “And I won't ever take you back/ Girl, your memory won't ever haunt me 'cause I don't love you.”

It’s all just a setup, of course, for a singalong chorus of “And now if you'll buy that, I've got some ocean front property in Arizona/ From my front porch, you can see the sea.”

Did they play it because they found themselves in Arizona? Doubtful. It sounded way too good to think they'd learned it just for this performance.

Scottsdale’s Hippie Chicks brought weed to Country Thunder

For their first year at Country Thunder, the Hippie Chicks sold THC and CBD gummies, ice cream and liquid kratom shots ranging from $10-$15.

The inspiration for the Scottsdale company came to owner Mike Halsam four years ago. As a chiropractor, he saw a lot of older female patients who were scared to try marijuana. They were nervous to go to a dispensary; they didn’t know what to get or how much to take.

“So our goal was to try and make that process easier,” Halsam said. “We found women who are in the cannabis industry or use cannabis on a regular basis and we tell their story on the back of this box. All the women on our packaging are real people.”

— Dina Kaur

Local music rocks the second stage

There was plenty of Arizona talent on the Copperhead Road Stage, tucked behind the food court, from the Parker Jenkins Band to Last Train to Juarez, Nathan Dean & The Damn Band, the Country Line, Shari Rowe, Jacob Morris, Lacey Rashea & The Young Guns and Alec Taylor Band.

If Jelly Roll knows one thing about the state of Arizona…

Jelly Roll frequently punctuated his sentence with the word Arizona followed by an exclamation point in the course of his profoundly moving, truly entertaining set.

He also acknowledged our natural affinity for cowboy music by way of introducing “Should’ve Been a Cowboy.”

"We lost a legend this year when we lost Toby Keith," he said. "As I was walking onstage, I said, 'I tell you what, I don't think there's a better place to honor Toby Keith than from right here. And if I know one thing about the state of Arizona, ya'll love some cowboy music, don't ya?"

Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @EdMasley.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Country Thunder 2024: The most Arizona things we saw at the festival